Virtualization technologies have driven rapid growth in virtual or “cloud-based” systems, which may provide various public (or private) functions and services. provider networks offer customers the opportunity to utilize virtualized computing resources on demand. Consumers of virtualized computing resources and storage, such as those offered by provider networks, can flexibly structure their computing and storage costs in response to immediately perceived computing and storage needs. For instance, virtualization allows customers of a provider network to purchase processor cycles and storage at the time of demand, rather than buying or leasing fixed hardware in provisioning cycles that are dictated by the delays and costs of manufacture and deployment of hardware. This lessens the need to accurately predict future demand as customers are able to purchase the use of computing and storage resources on a relatively instantaneous as-needed basis.
Virtualized computing resources also provide flexibility to provider networks. Resource utilization, capacity, planning, and other management activities performed as part of offering virtualized computing resources may rely upon the ability to choose appropriate physical resources to host virtualized computing resources and to launch or migrate virtualized resources to more efficient hosting locations. Moreover, the ability to launch or migrate resources in efficient locations may allow provider networks to better meet or exceed service level guarantees made to customers. Thus, efficient management of virtualized computing resources benefits both customers and provider networks.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.